Dr. Tim Thayne does the first episode in a two-part series on communication. He speaks about how listening is really the power position in any conversation. He gives helpful tips to show how you are really listening and trying to understand their point of view so you can most effectively communicate your position.
Dr. Tim Thayne does the first episode in a two-part series on communication. He speaks about how listening is really the power position in any conversation. He gives helpful tips to show how you are really listening and trying to understand their point of view so you can most effectively communicate your position.
Welcome to the not by chance Podcast. I'm Talmage. Tim, Thayne son and podcast Manager. This week and next week, Dr. Thayne will be doing a two part series on communication. The first week will be all about listening, how to listen and take in what the other person is saying. The next week will be about communicating what you have to say, actually speaking. So without further ado, let's jump into this.
Dr. Tim Thayne:Hey, everybody, I'm really excited about today's podcast. And actually, the next one as well, there's going to be a series of two podcasts in a row here. And it's going to be on the topic of communication. Now, every time we go into a family's home, one of the core things we want to help them with and leave them with our communication skills. So I'm going to give you some of the high level really powerful points around it. My job today, my goal today is to convince you to improve your communication, there's really two parts to it. You know, communication is the imparting of information back and forth between two people, potentially, between groups, etc. It's sending and receiving information. And that may sound simple. But the reality is, it is anything but simple. Because this is where we come in contact with each other with different ideas with maybe conflicting ideas. And so in the process of communicating, there's a lot of peril there. And there's a lot of potential. And so today, I want to talk about this in, I'm gonna break it down into two pieces. Today, I'm gonna talk about listening. Next time, I'm going to talk about speaking. Winston Churchill said courage is what it takes to stand up and speak. Courage is also what it takes to sit down and listen. So it takes courage on both sides here to do it. Well. I'm going to start with listening. Many years ago, my wife, Roxanne wanted to teach our young children about listening. And we had a family night where she spoke on this topic to the kids. And in her effort to really help them understand how important listening was, she made two big ears out of paper. And she taped them to her own ears. And then as she asked questions of the kids, she would sit there with her eyes wide open, looking them in the eye with these two big paper ears, pointed their direction, and eagerly soaking in what they had to say. And I thought that was an amazing experience, I think it probably good for everybody who is going to have a really important communication experience where they want to actually communicate about something really important with each other. Can you imagine one of the people putting on these big paper ears, and the other one is the speaker. And as long as you have those paper ears on, you're not going to speak, you're going to listen, and you're going to do it in an active way. Now a lot of us want to be the speaker first. And the reason I think we want to do that is we think that we have something really important to say. But I'm on I want to convince you today that actually the power position is starting as listener first. Now the reason for that is in the listening, that we really come to understand the other person and understand how we can connect with them. And maybe how we can couch what it is that we're going to say in a manner that they can receive it. So without being listener first, you really kind of flying blind way back when I don't know if they've really identified the date for this, but they're back in the maybe the 1100s 1200s 1300s back there. In the upstate New York area of the Great Lakes region. There were five or six tribes of Indians who were at war, and they could never really work out their differences. Finally, an individual came along. This individuals name was Degen, a wieder. He was later called the Great Peacemaker. And it took years for him to do this. But essentially he brought all these tribes together. And he started by having them bury their weapons of war deep into the earth. And then over that site, he planted a Peace Tree and the idea was that this was cover these weapons and the roots would be the communication reaching out to all the tribes. And that the the foliage would protect all of them. As a part of his efforts to help people gather and communicate, and work out their differences, the talking stick came into fashion. That's the idea of a council group of people around a fire possibly talking about an issue. And all of them having something important to say, but all of them needing to listen. And so the either a special object of some type or talking stick was given, and the person speaking would hold that stick, and then everyone around the council fire would listen intently. This is where active listening probably was born in some ways. It was through this process that they came together and established the Iroquois, nation or Confederacy. So all of these tribes really taint came together. What was cool about this, too, is that the contract or the peace agreement that they came to, was later used to help shape some of the Declaration of Independence. Powerful stuff came out of good listening. And that's what I want to talk to you about today. Let's let's talk about what it's going to take if you're going to enter into a conversation with somebody, that's important. You need to go into it with intentionality, you probably need to tell yourself, I'm going to start out as the listener, I'm not going to wait. Or I'm not going to take the speaker's role. First, I'm going to be the listener first. And you might say that's a really horrible position to be in. And it is, but it's also really powerful, it's vulnerable, because essentially, you're saying to yourself, I am going to not just be quiet and pretend to listen. But I'm going to be quiet, I'm going to have my eyes fixed on them to see their nonverbal communication to see what information I can gather through through my eyes, I'm going to listen with my ears and hear the tones, hear the pitch, hear the words, hear the meaning of what it is they're trying to convey. And then I'm going to do this with an open heart. And that essentially means that what they say, will have impact from on an emotional level, I want to be open, we're not listening, if our heart is closed and our ears are open, we have to actually open our heart as well. One of the things I'd like to do when I go and speak to a group of people, I like to have them do a little internal check in, before we start, maybe it's because I want them to listen to me. But I have them go through this process. And essentially, I want them to do a check in on three areas. First of all, what is their energy, like, you know, if you if you have really low energy, and you're about to enter into a difficult or important conversation, it may not be the best time to do that. So energy one to 10 of the all ask them to rate themselves. One is they're almost dead 10 is they've got lightning coming out of their fingertips. So they're full of energy. And if it's too low, there are things you can do right then and there to increase the energy. Sometimes even if you increase it just by 10 or 20%. It's enough to have that conversation. The next one is openness. I'll say okay, scale one to 10. How open are you? And this is really dealing with that heart piece I was talking about? So are you open to a new idea to a new perspective? Or are you rigidly committed to to your position? Are you open to the feelings, the intentions, maybe a side of the person that you're going to talk to that you have been close to in the past? Scale one to 10. The next thing is focus. I could be open I could have good energy, but there's something nagging at my mind, something I feel like I have to do that's getting in the way of actually focusing on them. So again, let's make sure if we're going to enter into a conversation that has the potential to resolve conflict has the potential to strengthen a bond between us and a child between us and a spouse or a co parent that we focus. We make sure that we have enough energy we have enough openness we we are focused and ready to receive. So that's my thoughts about listening today. Last thought and it's a challenge. I asked you to practice this, just try it. See what happens. And I think you're gonna find out that as you are positioned in that way with conversations and people that mean something to you that are important in your life. You're going to see Those relationships start to transform. That's the core position that that is the key position in being able to actually invite bonding, strengthen your relationships, and even creating more influence in the life of this other person.
Talmage Thayne:Thank you for listening to that podcast. We were super excited to get it to you guys because there's a lot of good stuff about energy and going into a conversation with an open mind and an open heart and how that actually creates a position of power for you. Make sure to listen to next week's episode, because we're going to be talking about the other half of communication which is actually speaking